City Council allocates $2 million in ARPA funds to Northlight Theatre, facilitating return to Evanston
The Daily Northwestern
Lila Carey, Assistant City Editor
April 12, 2022
City Council voted Monday to allocate $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to Northlight Theatre. The money will support the construction of a new performing arts center in downtown Evanston.
Originally opened in 1974 in Evanston, Northlight is a nonprofit theatre company which produces five shows each year, in addition to operating a range of arts education and outreach programs. The theatre moved to its current location at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie in 1997. With Monday’s allocation, the company is now looking to fundraise an additional $24 million to relocate to a new facility at 1012-18 Church St. in Evanston, as its current lease in Skokie will expire in 2024.
At Monday’s meeting, councilmembers and residents expressed their enthusiasm at moving the theatre back to Evanston and helping the local arts community recover from the effects of the pandemic.
“We are a city filled with the arts, and yet we don’t have (an arts venue) in our downtown,” said Ald. Melissa Wynne (3rd). “I am thrilled that Northlight is coming back.”
Northlight’s upcoming construction project was originally approved by the City Council prior to the start of the pandemic in 2019. However, the theatre lost 100% of ticket revenue from March 2020 to August 2021, according to Monday’s resolution, during which all performances were canceled. Since returning to in-person performances in September 2021, Northlight has only received 55% of its prior ticket revenues, according to the resolution.
Councilmembers decided in January 2021 that this revenue loss qualified Northlight’s project to receive ARPA funding. The city has received $43 million to date from ARPA, a federal program that allocates funds to local governments for pandemic recovery efforts.
Wynne and Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) emphasized Northlight’s importance to ARPA’s mission of economic recovery, saying the venue would bring a “halo effect” to downtown by attracting more foot traffic to surrounding restaurants and businesses.
“The indirect benefits that we are going to see in downtown with the increased vitality, increased vibrancy and positive energy, it’s going to have ripple effects,” Nieuwsma said. “We need something like Northlight to really make Evanston a destination, to bring people in from out of town.”